Monday, January 25, 2010

According to 1 John 4:8, god literally IS love. Here's the verse from the good old King James.He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

There is another instance in the New Testament where the Paul gives a description of what love is.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

According to the author of 1 John, god IS love, so we should be able to substitute the word god in every time love occurs in that passage. Let's give it a try.

God is patient, god is kind. He does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud. He is not rude, he is not self-seeking, he is not easily angered, he keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I replaced 'it' with 'he' just to stick with the misogyny of the bible.

I don't know about you, but reading it that way, with god replacing love, it doesn't sit right with me. I feel uneasy reading that about the god of the bible. Let's see if we can find some instances of god being patient, kind, etc.

God is patient.
In Genesis 18, god vows he will not destroy Sodom if he finds 10 non-evil people. He obviously did not look too hard, and obviously doesn't give a damn about children and babies, because according to Genesis 19, he destroyed the whole city.

God is kind.
2 Kings 2:23-24 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

Sending bears to murder 42 teenagers for something so pathetic as calling someone a 'baldy-head' has to be about the kindest thing I've ever heard of. NOT.

God does not envy.
Exodus 34:14 Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

The non-existent god of the bible is so scared of his people worshipping other non-existent gods that he calls himself jealous and threatens them with damnation if they do.

God does not boast.
Receiving endless amounts of worship doesn't count as boasting does it? God is oh so humble, that 24/7/365 praise and worship isn't supposed to inflate your ego is it.

God is not proud.
Psalm 31:23 The Lord preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer.

Pride is obviously a valued trait of the god of the bible.

God is not rude.
Malachi 2:3 "I'm going to punish your descendants. I'm going to spread excrement on your faces, the excrement from your festival sacrifices. You will be discarded with it.

Divine shit-slinging, how un-rude.

God is not self-seeking.
For what purpose did god create mankind if not to serve his own 'desires'?

God is not easily angered.
The entire saga of cursing mankind with the toils of physical labour and cursing women with the pain of childbirth, for simply eating a fruit. Talk about over reacting man!

2 Kings 2:23-24 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

God keeps no record of wrongs.
No, he intends to judge people. If he kept no record of wrongs he would not be able to do this. There are plenty of verses especially in the new testament about judgement. I'm sure most Christians already know this though.

God does not delight in evil.
According to a common christian definition, evil is simply whatever god says it is. With this in mind though, most if not all of the acts attributed to god in the old testament would be considered evil by many christians if it wasn't god who did it.

Judges 11 30 And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD : "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, 31 whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering."

32 Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. 33 He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.

34 When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, "Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break."

36 "My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me just as you promised, now that the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. 37 But grant me this one request," she said. "Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry."

38 "You may go," he said. And he let her go for two months. She and the girls went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. 39 After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed.

God delights so much in the truth that he intentionally deceives people and sends lying spirits to prophets. It is worth mentioning that the punishment in the old testament for a prophet giving a false prophecy was death by stoning. So if god was sending lying spirits into prophets, they would naturally gives false prophecies, and thus be stoned to death. I'm pretty sure this violates nearly every single characteristic on this list.

God always protects.
Leviticus 26:17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.

This is the kind of deity I want on my side, the one that protects me... Oh wait....

God always trusts.
God didn't trust Sodom and Gomorrah to change, he just annihilated them.
Genesis 19 23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. 26 But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Monday, January 18, 2010

This is a slight departure from my usual subject matter, but I couldn't resist from writing about this.

I'm not a completely intolerant grammar-nazi, but when it comes to a mistake as simple as using the correct version of your/you're or there/their/they're or even to/too/two, I will not tolerate it. These kinds of mistakes are what you would expect from a 9 year old. If you do not know the difference by the time you're twenty years old, you've missed something important. You've missed learning the ability to communicate your ideas effectively to other people. English may be a mildly confusing language, but by ignoring the established rules and using incorrect words you're not making it any easier. There is a reason we have different words for all these things, because they all mean different things and are used for different purposes.

I'll give a guide to using these very simple words below.

Your
A form of the possessive case of 'you' used as an attributive adjective
e.g.
Your jacket is in that closet. I like your idea.You're
Contraction of 'you are'.
e.g.
You're a dumbass.There
Refers to a location.
e.g.
Let's go there for dinner.They're
Contraction of 'they are'
e.g.
They're all dumbasses.Their
A form of the possessive case of 'they' used as an attributive adjective, before a noun.
e.g.
Their cat smells like poo.To
Used for expressing direction or motion or direction toward something.
e.g.
Let's go to the beach.Too
In addition
e.g.
I'm coming too! Two
The number 2.
e.g.
There are two kinds of people, the ones who understand english, and the ones who don't.

'End Times' as Christians call it has always perplexed me, even when I was one myself. What confused me most about the whole saga was the fact that every single generation of Christians since the religion started thought they were living in the end times. The writers of the new testament most certainly thought they were living in the end times, and most of them thought that Christ would return in their lifetimes. Many modern groups have even predicted specific dates when they world would end. The Seventh Day Adventists tried twice, but they ended up sitting in cornfields looking like morons. The Jehovah's Witnesses also tried a few times, and looked equally stupid. These days though, most of the groups claiming these sorts of things are small isolated groups not representative of mainstream Christianity at all.

There are dozens of verses in the New Testament which indicate that the writers of the books thought that their lord would return soon, I'll give a short list of some of them.
James 5:8Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
1 Peter 4:7But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.
Hebrews 10:37 For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
Revelation 1:1The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass.
1 Thessalonians 4:17Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord

In fact, the authors of the gospels claim that Jesus said the people listening to him would see his return.
Matthew 16:28Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.
Luke 9:27But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.
Mark 13:30Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.

There are many more instances of all these kinds of passages within the New Testament, so it is no wonder that Christianity has had such a fascination with Armageddon and end times for the last two millennia. Though what should we make of these passages, some of them are spoken in a prophetic manner, for example the Jesus quotes from the gospels. If these really were the words of Jesus, he was most certainly wrong. By my understanding, that would therefore make him a false prophet. Do you know what the Old Testament says about false prophets? Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and 18:20-22 teach that false prophets must be put to death. So perhaps Jesus had it coming to him, telling people that he would be back within their lifetimes and all, and it not coming true.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Anyone who attempts to use the "Isn't evolution only a theory" argument only shows their own ignorance towards science, I'll explain why.
When talking about evolution, there are at least 3 main things you could be referring to:
1) Change in genetic characteristics in a population over time. This is a fact, it does happen, and it can be observed.
2) Historical evolution, also known as common descent, that all living things share common ancestors. This is also a fact, the evidence for it is overwhelming, through genetic, fossil and anatomical similarities.
3) The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection.

The theory refers to the mechanism by which evolution occurs, and is distinguishable from the fact of evolution. Theories do not progress and become facts, ever. Facts do not change, theories change when more facts become available.

Here is a link to an article that explains this concept more thoroughly if anyone is interested.

I just went back and watched some clips from an interview that I watched some months ago. The interview was between Richard Dawkins and a woman named Wendy Wright. The entire interview is more than an hour long and I do not recommend it to anyone unless you enjoy getting extremely frustrated at how pig-ignorant people can be. Wendy Wright is a young earth creationist.

Wendy Wright has absolutely no credentials, none, nada, zip, yet she constantly hammers Dawkins with the phrase "show me the evidence", and when he replies listing numerous examples of evidence for evolution she simply changes the topic. Dawkins said to her one time "You people repeat that like some kind of mantra", which is exactly what they do. I remember hearing it so many time from creationist videos and reading it in creationist books, they continually tell each other that there is no evidence for evolution when this simply is not the case, quite the contrary in fact, they are just too deceitful and willingly ignorant to see it

There was another instance where Dawkins would not let her change the topic so easily, and asked her "Where did you study science?" she says "Well see that's the point, scientists are now claiming that they're the only ones that can speak on this issue". As I highlighted in an earlier post, there is no issue, there is no debate, there is no controversy within the scientific community. The only people who choose to disbelieve the massive amounts of evidence that support biological evolution are the pig-ignorant or the agenda driven liars behind the creationist intelligent design movement. Wendy Wright happens to fall under both these categories, she is grossly uneducated and misinformed about science in general, and how it works, yet she thinks she can go around speaking about it and 'teaching' her beliefs to others, children in particular.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the bible says anything about this concept at all. Nevertheless, many Christians will tell you that there is free will in heaven. In my mind this is a self defeating belief because in the same sentence they will tell you that there is also no sin and no suffering or disease etc. in heaven. Christians typically define sin as that which goes against the wishes of god. Already, we've encountered our first paradoxical statement, if there is no sin in heaven, that means everyone will only be doing that which is in accordance to gods wishes, if you had free will on the other hand you would be free to do whatever was in accordance with your wishes. The reason they want to believe that they have free will in heaven is because of their belief that god wanted people to love him freely and not be "robots".
Let's give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being and say that it was possible to have free will and be sinless in heaven. We encounter another semi-paradox here, if heaven was the perfect world, where people had free will, never committed sins and where there was no suffering, then why didn't god create that kind of world in the first place?
One objection to my arguments could be that people have free will, but in the presence of god it is impossible to commit sins. This objection falls flat on it's face almost immediately, because according to christian lore, the devil was an angel that rebelled against god, and was cast out of heaven as a result.

Pat Robertson, the same person who brought us the Demon-Possessed candy and hatred against pagans, has now made a comment on the recent Haiti earthquake. Pat Robertson claims that the reason hundreds of thousands of people have died is because the Haitians had made a pact with the devil. He also says that this pact is responsible for the decades of poverty in Haiti.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Occasionally I hear someone rabbiting on about how Charles Darwin renounced evolution and accepted Jesus on his death bed. Every time I hear someone repeat this I face-palm. It wouldn't even matter if it were true, as the theory of evolution by natural selection sits on a solid mound of evidence, not on the laurels of it's originator. The fact of the matter is though that the story originated 33 years after Darwins death, a woman named Elizabeth Reid (aka. Lady Hope) claimed that she had met with him before he died, when no such meeting ever occured. The children of Charles Darwin protested against this story and Lady Hope was exposed as a liar.

Some of the most compelling evidence for evolution comes in the form of organs and limbs that have lost their original fuction to some degree. These are known as vestiges, or vestigial organs. A common misconception is that a vestigial organs is required to have no function at all. This is not the case. The requirement for something to be considered a vestige is merely that it does not function as it was once intended to. A good example would be the wings of flightless birds, which are obviously not used for flight but still serve some purpose. The wings of an ostrich are used to balance while running, and are an important part of courtship displays. The human coccyx (aka. tailbone) no longer serves as the base of a tail, but is an anchor point for many muscles used for shitting in the groinal area.
The Talk Origins database has a fairly comprehensive section on vestigiality if you're interested to learn more.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

There is one particular Creationist by the name of Kent Hovind, I've mentioned him before but this is about one of his key arguments. Before he was imprisoned for tax fraud he used to go all around the U.S. lying to children about science and making videos. One of his lies that he used to spread quite maliciously was his idea that dinosaurs were simply giant lizards that lived in the garden of Eden with Adam and Steve. There are so many things wrong with this idea that it's hard to know where to start.....

Dinosaurs are NOT lizards at all, let alone giant lizards. Yes, They both lay eggs. Yes they are both types of reptile. However, they are not synonymous. Here is an image showing the key difference between the two. Lizards have legs that are 'Sprawling' whereas dinosaurs stand erect. If you're interested in reading more about what actually makes a dinosaur a dinosaur you can read the well-sourced wikipedia article here.

The other idea of his that ties into this whole shenanigan is that they lived in the garden of Eden 6000 years ago. I've already written about this before so if you've read that post you should know how absolutely ridiculous this notion is. Something that I haven't mentioned before is the reason he gives for why the "lizards" grew so large and why people lived for so long. He believes that there was a water canopy in the sky that filtered harmful radiation from the sun out, allowing people to live for 900 years and causing lizards to grow excessively large. Not only is this idea completely unscientific but his reason for having this belief is laughable. The genesis account mentions a firmament in the sky. From this one mention of a firmament he derives this belief that he goes around deceiving children with.

A bit of a disorganised post but hopefully there was something worth reading in there.

Since my de-conversion, many Christians have said to me "I'm praying for you" or similar things. If you sincerely believe that prayer works and that your deity listens and cares about your requests then keep praying for me and see if it works.

There is no debate. In fact there hasn't been a debate for nearly 100 years. The debate I'm talking about is the creation/evolution debate. I heard the phrase so many times when I was a christian, people would refer to the creation/evolution debate as if it was something real and continual. This is not the case, the debate has been over for a long time, and if you don't 'believe' in evolution you're either naive or in denial.